In recent years, users operate a plurality of information processing apparatuses (hereafter called “a terminal” or “a terminal device”). For example, in addition to a main PC for business, a user usually carries a notebook PC, a smartphone, a tablet terminal or the like. And the user may use a backup service to create a backup file of a created or updated file, and a file synchronization service to share a same file with all the terminal devices. Therefore it is no longer rare for a plurality of same files to exist on a same terminal or a plurality of terminals.
Under this state, if a desired file is edited at a terminal, it is preferable that a file is searched among the plurality of terminals, an editing target file is selected from a file list detected by the file search, the selected file is transferred from the terminal storing this selected file to a terminal to edit the file, and then the file is displayed. It is also preferable that the original file is updated to the edited file.
The methods of searching files are disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-278814, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2008-15637 and Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2006-107375.